


Winter's Nemesis

by slutforcavill



Category: Captain America (Movies), Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bucky Barnes post Endgame, Bucky Barnes with short hair, Childhood Trauma, F/M, Graphic Description of Violence and Blood, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader is a genuis, Reader is a misunderstood person, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV) Trailers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28295073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slutforcavill/pseuds/slutforcavill
Summary: [Y/F/N] [Y/L/N] is an infamous terrorist, or that's what the world thinks she is. But is she really? Or is she just a misunderstood person, stuck at the wrong place at the wrong time?Will the super soldier be able to crack through her? Get into her mind and get her to show him who she really is?[Post Endgame: Steve has given his shield to Sam Wilson, and went on to live his life with Peggy Carter, while Bucky chose to stay back, and move forward—as an Avenger.]Trigger Warnings: Could have 18+ content. Will shoot out warnings before the chapter so you'll know.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

" _Are you sure we are at the right place?_ I don't hear a damn sound," Bucky whispered in a low voice, his handgun held securely in his grip, his gun raised up high, as he walked on the pads of his feet, trying to keep his walk lighter, and quieter. Sam turned towards him , glancing at him, and quickly moved his gaze back to the front as he mumbled, " _How the hell am I supposed to know_ , man? I trust my sources and my intel." The two of them were standing outside an abandoned mental hospital, a building that had been abandoned in the 1990s after the owner was thrown into prison, for illegally practising medicine on an expired license.

" _Fuck your intel_ , bird man, it looks like we've been played. This place looks abandoned, I can smell the rot in there from this far." 

"Listen, Bucky. We've come this far, we might as well check it out–" Sam began to place his palm on the massive metal door in front of him. Rust was already coating the door, signalling them that perhaps this place hadn't been used in ages. He wiped off the cobwebs with his palm, immediately drawing it away and rubbing his hand with the fabric of his spandex, a weird expression on his face. 

"Sure, _please lead the way_ ," Bucky snapped back, sarcasm dripping from his tone. He fixed himself just next to Sam as he began pushing the jammed metal door with all his might, and Bucky readied himself to shoot, to cover for Sam, if required. Neither of the two knew what lay behind the closed door, so it was the only wise choice for him to make— to be ready for whatever the fuck was waiting for them in there.

The door groaned fervently as Sam managed to push it open. The insides of the abandoned building looked worse than the exteriors. The walls were dirty, with bloody handprints on the walls, words scratched out on the walls; words like ' _please help me_ ', ' _they're all crazy_ '. Bucky noted, his lips pressed into a firm line as his eyes scanned the horrible condition this building was in. The furniture, now coated in a thick sheen of dust, it made it hard to realize what the actual colour of the furniture was. This building had probably not been used in ages.

"Man, this place is creepy as fuck," Sam breathed, squinting his eyes when his voice echoed back to him, "and hasn't probably been used in ages." 

"Which is exactly why I said that your reliable sources played us. There's nothing here—" Bucky had barely spoken, when a loud noise rang out from somewhere inside the building; the sound of something metallic crashing against the floor.

"You'd still say that to me, Bucky?" Sam smirked, only to be met with a glare from Bucky as he pressed his index to his lips, signalling him to be quiet and motioned for him to keep walking, towards the source of the noise.

The silence was tormenting, and the only sound that they could hear was the sound of their own faint footsteps, and the sound of their breaths as their chests rose and fell in symphony. 

They made their way through the dark, stank hallways. Gurneys and stretchers were toppled over, old and expired medicines were scattered on the floor. The windows were dirty, and the glass on the windows were cracked and moonlight fell through from these cracks. 

It was when the two of them reached the other wing, they began hearing voices— of people speaking.

_"Why should I hand you this? What's in it for me?"_

It was a woman's voice; the way she pronounced her words were exotic, and her voice was laced with heaviness, making her words come out loud enough for them to understand and clear as crystal. Her accent was slightly different; definitely not American, but neither was it an accent that he had heard of before. Bucky held his gun tighter, his finger lightly resting over the trigger, as he began taking side steps towards a wooden door inside. He pressed his ear against it, while Sam stood next to him, trying to listen to the voices. 

_"Those bags are filled with money, so much more than you can ever imagine. Think about it, sweetheart. Hand me that pendrive, and you can have all of it. Buy yourself a nice mansion by the beach, or own the largest wardrobe."_

A shrill laughter suddenly ran out through the inside of the room. 

_"I would, only, I don't give a fuck about a mansion on a beach, or a massive wardrobe. Sorry, I changed my mind. You can keep the cash. I am not going to sell you my blueprints."_

_"Then, you can have this—"_

Just then, gunshots rang out through the other side of the door and Bucky cursed under his breath, as he kicked on the door hard enough to watch the wood splinter into two. Pushing the wood splinters away, the two of them jumped inside, their guns drawn out, their eyes widening when they saw a trail of blood on the inside, and a woman sitting on the window ledge, her feet dangling against the window as she smiled. 

On the floor, the man coughed, and spluttered out blood from his mouth. He had a gaping hole on the right side of his neck, and blood spurted out of it.

"Get away from the window, you cooperate with us, tell us what happened, and we won't shoot you," Bucky called out to her, while Sam knelt by the man, checking his pulse, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. 

"She.. She's got.. she's got the blueprints to the—" 

She effortlessly pulled out her handgun again, cocking it once before she pulled the trigger. The bullet whizzed over Sam's head, smashing into the man's skull, rendering him speechless, and unable to speak anything else. 

"Fuck." Bucky grunted, cursing under his breath as he started running towards her, however, at the exact time when he reached the window, but before he could reach out and grab her, she gracefully pushed herself off the ledge, screaming as she fell down the first storey window, gracefully landing on her feet when her feet hit the floor. Bucky followed her, sliding himself over the window frame, as he jumped after her, but she was already running away. 

"Sam, I'm going after her, she is running downtown," Bucky yelled into his comms, as he ran after her running silhouette. She bumped and pushed past the people walking by, most of them turning around and hurling abuses at her, but one look at the shiny metal that she held clutched against her fingers made them shut up and immediately press themselves to the walls, as Bucky ran past them. 

She leapt over the short picket fence, cursing at herself when her jacket got caught against one of the spikes, and she turned, just to check where Bucky was. That's when he saw her face properly— her olive ivory skin shone under the pale moonlight, her eyes looked back at him from behind the massive round frames that she wore over her eyes. Her short cropped hair, up till her shoulders, bounced as she pulled the jacket off, ripping it to a shred at the place where it had gotten entangled to it.

Bucky knew who she was; he had seen her on TV, being chased by the police but she was never caught. Rumour had it that she had worked for HYDRA once, but there was no credibility to it. She was known as a lone working terrorist, she didn't have affiliation to any group whatsoever and she worked for herself, stealing classified information from the government, hacking into their systems and things like that. Another thing he knew was — this woman was a mastermind, and was extremely intelligent. She had made all sorts of gadgets; ranging from spying drones, to electric batons and tasers. And she illegally sold them. 

Bucky wondered what the blueprint was about. Whatever it was— it had to be something grave, and something deadly, for she had killed a man right in front of them to escape. 

"Bucky, are you there? Did you get her?" Sam suddenly called out, and his attention snapped back to the back of her head. He frowned when he realised that she was now getting away, blending into the crowd of people in front of him. 

"No, for fucks sake Wilson, _I'm losing her_. Where the fuck are you?" He grunted into the comms, over the static as he jumped over the picket fence effortlessly as began sprinting in full pace. He had to get her. He had to know what it was that she was running away with. 

"I was searching the corpse, Bucky. I found something—" 

"What the fuck is the matter with you? I'm chasing after this lunatic freak, and you are searching over a darn corpse?" 

"Just hear me out, Barnes. You're going to want to know," Sam's voice suddenly cut him off, and he frowned as his eyes darted through the crowd, looking for her but much to his dismay, he realized that he had lost her. 

"Great, just fuckin' great. I lost her." 

"It's okay— Bucky, now listen to me, this man.. _he was HYDRA_." 

Bucky stopped running. He was suddenly at a loss of words; his mind felt like it was about to explode. He bent forward, placing his hands on his knees, his eyes clenched shut. He wasn't out of breath yet, but he couldn't think straight. This couldn't be.

"Are you sure? I don't get it, Steve and I, we burnt down the last of their bases two years back, I don't—" 

"Okay, I don't know about all that man, but I can see this tattoo right on his wrist. And I swear to god, I'm not kidding. He was HYDRA. But that's not what I'm worried about—" 

"Then what is it?" Bucky snapped, standing back up, his eyes cautiously glancing around him, his eyes struggling to catch a glimpse of her once more. 

"It was clear he wanted something, and he was desperate. She killed him. This could only mean that she has something that they want." Sam's voice rang through the comms, and Bucky clenched his fist. 

"We have to find her, we have to find her now. We have to find what it is that HYDRA wants from her." 

* * *

"I doubt she would have gotten far, I'm gonna go aerial, see if I spot her through the crowd, you check the perimeters," Sam instructed, and Bucky nodded, watching Falcon fly off as he twirled around, sliding his gun into the holster, as he began blending into the crowd himself. 

He didn't know why there were so many people out on the street at this time of the night, making it even difficult to spot her through the dimly lit streets. By now, she could have gone; left and they wouldn't find out where. 

_It was as though [Y/N] wanted to be seen by him._

He finally saw her; her face turned towards him as she stood at the farther end of the crowd. The smile on her face was evil, yet inviting. She wanted him to follow him perhaps, or perhaps she was just playing a sick, twisted game. He grunted, his hand flying to the holster as he drew out the gun again and began sprinting through the crowd towards her. She was quick to turn around, when she saw him approaching so she began running too, her slender legs carrying her as fast as current.

"I'm going after her, Sam, I can see her— I'm on her tail," He mumbled into the Comms, his eyes fixed on his target.

Bucky, however, was shocked out of his wits by what he saw. The crowds had by now started dispersing, more so because Bucky was loud as he ran after her screaming for the civilians to move out the way. His view of her was clear now. She was wearing a navy blue jeans and a red coloured hoodie, that was bouncing up and down as she ran. Also, she was within Bucky's firing range— he could easily aim at her leg, shoot her calves and slow her down. Somehow, before he could do that, his attention was pulled over to a young little boy, not more than five.

Somehow, the young boy had managed to get onto the road, oblivious to the running traffic around him. On one side of the road, his mother was screaming for him to stay where he was. The little boy darted his eyes around, screaming at the top of his lungs, panic filling him up. 

He slowly took a step towards his mother, but a blaring horn made him jump backwards, and Bucky just cursed at the sight, as he began running towards him, [Y/N] already forgotten. 

It wasn't like he couldn't see another car spiralling towards the boy now. If only he was closer, or faster. He was trying— trying his best to reach the boy and to save him, but is just wasn't possible. He doubted if he could reach him. Where the hell was Sam when he needed him the most?

"Sam? SAM? COME IN, WILSON, THERE'S A YOUNG BOY—" 

He didn't understand where [Y/N] came from— it was like she had jumped out of nowhere. He watched, his eyes bludgeoning out beyond belief as she sprinted in the direction of the screaming child, ignoring the car that was swivelling down the road. Bucky could see that the driver was panicking, and trying to slam down on the breaks, but the car didn't seem to be slowing down. 

She reached the boy just then, pushing him out of the way, as swiftly as her hands could, but she couldn't save herself from the hit, by mere inches.

The car brushed past her back, the momentum making her body jostle and fling forward as she fell face first against the concrete. Bucky grunted, cursing under his breath as he ran towards the crowd that had now gathered around her. 

"Move, move out of the damn way," he pushed past the crowd, pushing the men away, as he made his way to the front, only to find the place empty. 

He grabbed the man that was the nearest, pulling him to himself. 

"Where is she?" 

"She ran that side. She was bleedin' in the damn face. We tried to stop her but —"

* * *

"Where the hell are you, man?" Sam's voice rang out through the comms, _finally_.

"Nowhere, I lost her— " he lied, pressing his lips into a firm line. His eyes on the blood trail in front of him, he had walked into a tiny, cramped up alleyway, having followed that trail of blood she was leaving behind. He didn't know why he lied to him, telling him he had lost her. 

Maybe because he wasn't so sure that he would find her. Or maybe, he just didn't want to.

"Where were you when I was trying to call for you?" He snapped. 

"Something was wrong with this damn earpiece— _it miraculously just began working again_ ," Sam chortled back.

"Just go back to the towers, I need a drink. I'll see you later." 

Before Sam could reply, he turned off the device, pulling the earpiece out of his ear, sliding it into his pocket. 

It was only then when he saw that the blood trail had suddenly stopped, which caused him to jerk his head upwards, his eyes falling on her crouching figure. 

[Y/N] was leaning against a wall, her face all bloody, blood trickling down her neck and her throat, dried up blood caked all over her cheeks. 

"I didn't think you had it in you to be able to find me, but you did," she hissed through her lips, perhaps not able to speak due to the injuries on her face. Even in the dead of the night she looked white, her body had paled— like death. She had probably lost a lot of blood.

Bucky walked up to where she was leaning, his boots clanking against the gravelly ground until he was towering over her form. Without even bothering to reply back, he slid his metal arm through her waist, lifting her up and flinging her across his shoulder like she was a sack of rice. 

"Way to take advantage of a girl like that, Sarge— "

Bucky couldn't believe it; her face was badly bruised, and yet she was mocking him. 

"I'm not that kind of a man," he shot back, his voice cold and emotionless as he began walking back, only to abruptly stop walking. 

Where was he going to take her? If he took her to a hospital, they would put her into prison before even he had a chance to speak to her, ask her what HYDRA wanted of her, because this was [Y/N], a wanted criminal. Also, he couldn't take her back to the Avengers towers. It was too far away, and he couldn't wait for Sam to come and pick the two of them up and take them back to the towers.

"Why'd you stop Sarge? Something... bother you?" Her voice was even softer now, and Bucky knew that she could barely keep her eyes open. 

"I'm trying to figure out a way to keep you alive, and you aren't exactly helping. If I take you to the towers, you might end up bleeding all over on my clothes, and I don't want that," he mumbled, only to get a laugh out of her lips, followed by a weak sounding cough. 

"I.. live here, Sarge. First door through the right. I just can't seem to find my keys though, must have dropped them." 

Bucky couldn't believe it; this woman was still giggling, when she was slowly bleeding to death. 

"I'll just have to break it I suppose." 

Bucky went up the front porch of the apartment she had informed him was hers. He kept holding her on his shoulder, his metal arm locked around the back of her thighs. He brought his foot up and kicked the door, breaking it in one go as he entered into a tiny little apartment. 

"Where's your bedroom? And your medical kit?" 

She wasn't speaking anymore, and Bucky knew that it won't be long before she passed out. She weakly lifted her palm, pointing her index finger towards a room, before her hand collapsed against Bucky's back, darkness clouding her eyes finally. 

Following the direction she had just pointed him in, he managed to carry her into the bedroom as he laid her down against the bed, and began rummaging through the contents of the bedside table, looking for a medical kit. 

"You're not dying on me, [Y/N], not until I have my answers. I want to know what HYDRA wants from you. And what is it that you are planning to do next." 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

The first thing that Bucky did was wash the blood off her face with an antibacterial disinfectant— once done, he dumped the blood soaked cotton into the trashcan, and was back to her side, as his adept fingers worked on her upper lip, the gash on her forehead, and her eyebrow as he began patching up the cuts that she had received.

He had to give her seven stitches. Once done, he bandaged her broken nose, fixing it as much as he could. He wasn't a doctor, but the time he had spent— the countless years being HYDRA'S dog had taught him how to lick his own wounds. No one patched him up, or treated his broken nose when he was hurt seriously during the mission, he did it all himself.

In the same way, he fixed her up again.

He then fixed himself by the couch on the opposite side of her bed, letting himself get comfortable against it, his eyes watching her like a hawk, his back resting comfortably against the headboard.

He could play it all in his mind like a still from a movie— he was running towards that five year old kid, when she jumped in out of nowhere, stepping in front of that speedy car, pushing that kid out of the way, and got herself hit. It was just by a mere inch, and had she been right in front of the car, she would have died on the spot.

He didn't understand it one bit, how a woman, infamous for her ruthlessness and criminal activities— was capable of showing what she just did— risking her own life to save a child's. He pulled out his phone, flicking it open as he went to the Google search engine, his fingers working against the keypad to type in the words '[Y/N] [Y/L/N] caught on the security footage kidnapping the governor's children'. He then pressed play on the video, and began watching it.

It was definitely her in the video, and she didn't even bother covering her face, although she did have a baseball cap fixed atop her head. He could see her clearly, entering the governor's house, with a glistening gun in her hand, and then she was gone. Until, after around a fifteen minute skip in the timeframe of the footage, she was clearly visible stepping out again, holding the young children's hand as she walked them out of their home, holding one of them by her hand, while the youngest sibling was coiled to her chest, bundled up using a shawl as a makeshift baby carrier.

The police never tracked her down, and these kids were never found. And this wasn't the only time she had done this before. This woman had been all over the news for the past five years, stealing kids from almost all over Boston.

What did she do with the kids? If he had to guess, she was probably selling them off— maybe she was involved in child trafficking mafia— but then again, there was no evidence that could prove that to him.

His head snapped towards her sleeping form again— she looked peaceful, her chest slowly rising up and down, her hair spread out like halo over her pillow, her broken glasses resting on the bedside table beside her. Now that he looked at her for so long, he noticed how pretty she actually was. Not that he liked her or something, but in a general way. She wasn't model pretty, tall, tan or blonde, with a perfect body. She was exotically beautiful, aesthetically appeasing, her olive skin looked like ivory, soft, plush and silky.

He didn't know how long he kept watching her, minutes turned to an hour, and his own eyes began getting heavy. He stood up, slowly making his way out of her bedroom as he began to snoop through her house, trying to rummage through her drawers for any information he could find on her— anything to tell him what she was up to, and what she was planning to do.

All that was stuffed into the drawers were spare parts of electronic gadgets, thousands of nuts and bolts, and all sorts of tools. He shook his head, frowning at the sight of those before he propped himself in front of her computer, and tried to access it, but could not of course, as he didn't have a clue what her password could be.

Maybe, the only option he was now left with was to wait for [Y/N] to wake up— and get her to answer all the questions in the back of his mind herself.

* * *

A wave of nausea hit over her, caused by the unbearable pain she was feeling all over her face. Her eyes fluttered open, and she blinked for a few seconds, her eyes taking their own time to adjust to the lighting in her room. Sun was now creeping in through the cracks in the blinds of her bedroom, informing her that it was a new day.

The events of last night came spiralling into her mind— she had gotten seriously injured, she had escaped but Sargeant James Buchanan Barnes had followed her, and found her before he had flung her over his shoulder and broken down her front door to get her in. Reflexively, her hand flew up to her face, and she winced when her fingers pressed against one of her wounds, and even over the dressing it hurt like a bitch, and her face felt like it was on fire.

She sat up in bed, her head still groggy and disoriented, and her eyes squinted in the direction of the bedroom door, outside which she could hear weird thumping sounds, that seemingly alarmed her. She had a lot of questions in her mind, but the most immediate one was— where did he go? He couldn't have just been kind enough to patch her up the way he did and just leave. There was no way on earth he would do that, not when she was a wanted criminal.

Swinging her legs against her bed, she pushed herself up into a standing position. She winced as blood began running down her blood vessels, her injuries throbbing in revolt to gravity. She walked up to the door, turning the doorknob to pull the door open.

Her eyes fell on him— he was kneeling by the door, working on the front door that he had kicked open last night, unaware that she had woken up and was standing behind him, watching him work.

A weird, fucked up part inside of her liked the sight in front of her. She knew who this man was, he was one of the Avengers, who had been HYDRA'S puppet for years before he was finally broken from his brain fuck and taken in as an Avenger. She had always thought of him as a beautiful yet internally damaged person, who came with a lot of baggage, and issues. For her, all beautiful things were dangerous, and all beautiful things were damaged.

"Good mornin'," she finally broke her silence, clearing her throat, watching him freeze for a second before his head snapped in her direction. He left whatever he was earlier working on, immediately getting back up to his feet as he strode towards [Y/N].

"How do you feel?" He inquired, keeping his distance from her, his eyes scanning through her face to try and read into her thoughts.

"I feel like shit. Like my face is on fire, but you did a fairly good job. I suppose I shouldn't bother lookin' at myself in the mirror."

She waited for a few seconds for him to speak, however, his lips were pressed into a thin line, and he was looking at her with a weird expression on his face, which made her lips tug upwards, into a half smile, half frown that had been caused by the fact that even trying to smile made her face hurt.

"So—" she began, placing her hand on the doorframe to hold herself steady, as she still was weak and groggy from all that had happened last night, "— you gonna arrest me? Take me with you and lock me in a cell at your Avengers facility? Have people come and look at me, interrogate me? Or are you going to wait for me to actually recover? What's it gonna be?"

"I will arrest you, _eventually_ — but for now, I need answers from you, [Y/N]." His voice was blunt like a knife, and he spoke to her like he meant business, direct and straight to the point, no beating around the bush. Of course he was going to arrest her— she was a wanted terrorist, for fucks sake. But he wasn't going to arrest her until she had recovered enough to be able to be ready to go through all that interrogation. The way she looked like now— she looked like she could crumple on the floor, right in front of him, if she stood any longer.

"Let's sit and talk," He mumbled, motioning for her to walk back and get into bed. She looked at him for a bit, her eyes narrowed in a way that made her eyes look way tinier than they were. After letting out a low sounding huff, she turned around, her hand instantly flying up to her head and her other one grabbing the doorframe for support— she had turned around too fast, and the dizziness in her mind could not take it.

Bucky noticed this, instantly stepping behind her just in case she fell, but she didn't— she steadied herself using the support from the doorframe and went back into the room, lowering herself against the side of the bed, while Bucky fixed himself on the couch, facing her.

"Why did you kill that man?" He tilted his neck towards one side, eyeing her from the blues in his eyes.

"Survival—" she replied, instantaneously, glancing back at him. Her posture was straight, not even her shoulders were hunched, and there was alertness in her eyes, even though her head felt fucked up, "—before he could pull out his gun and take the first shot, I shot him. Isn't that what life is about? About the survival of the fittest? You blink, and you lose. You watch your own back, fend for yourself, and I don't think I need to explain this to you, out of all the people, no offense."

"None taken— it's weird though, Sam didn't find any gun on him, and this could only mean, _you are lying_."

Bucky leaned forward, letting his elbows rest against his knees, both his hands clubbed together. His eyes looked darker, his face devoid of any emotion whatsoever.

"Who said I had a gun? I didn't. I pulled it off him before he could pull the trigger— _this gun_ ," she cocked her head to the side her bedstand was, and on top of it lay a handgun, that Bucky had thought was hers and he had pried it off her holster, placing it on the top of the bedside table, when he had brought her in last night, "who said that's mine?"

"Where are the kids that you kidnapped from all over Boston? There's got to be a dozen of em."

His voice lacked any emotion, but his eyes were fixed on her, watching her body language, trying to guage whether she was telling him the truth, or just blatantly lying.

She smiled, a thin lipped smile— as much as her battered face allowed her to, "What kids?"

"These kids, [Y/N]." Bucky rolled his eyes at her, pulling out his phone as he pressed play on the CCTV footage of her walking out with the governor's children, "And the ten of them before them. What did you do to them?"

Bucky's left eyebrow shot up, when he saw her push herself up again, so that she was now standing beside the bed, her eyes fixed on him.

"Follow me, Sargeant."

Bucky frowned, his flesh hand fixed on his temple as he scratched it lightly, and stood up, wondering where she was taking him. Was she holding the kids hostage somewhere in the house? She walked briskly, not bothering to wait for the super soldier to catch up with her as she descended a flight of stairs and reached a metal door.

"Look away, Sarge, I'm not ready to spill my secrets just yet."

Bucky grunted under his breath, turning away and looking at the wall, his ears fixed to the small beeps that the device made as she punched the passcode into it. The metal door opened with a swoosh, and Bucky turned back around, glancing at the secret room she had just brought him into half expecting the kids to be huddled up inside, tied to chains or whatever. However, when he stepped inside, he almost gasped in surprise. This looked like her secret work zone— half assembled gadgets lay on the steel experiment tables, and Bucky almost lost his breath at the sight of what looked like a vibranium arm, just like he had on.

"Why the hell do you have this?" He snapped, his fingers reaching out towards it— but before his fingers could reach the metal, she smacked his hand away, her expressions unreadable.

"No touching anything, half of the things around here can take away your fingers. As for this hand, I was fascinated by your arm when they caught you at Triskelion, now don't get it into your head."

When he didn't smile, or react to her snarky little home, she rolled her eyes at him, and ran her fingers through the surface of it.

"Just kidding— _it's none of your fucking concern_."

Bucky watched as she moved towards the farther end of the room, where a working desk stood. Lowering herself against the leather chair, her fingers began typing adeptly against the keyboard, while Bucky fixed himself next to her, his eyes fixed on the computer screen. She was jumping through folders so fast, it was hard for him to actually figure out what she was trying to do— until she suddenly clicked on a video, and a footage started playing.

The footage showed the governor, and the video had been recorded secretly. Whoever had recorded it, Bucky could see that the person was hiding behind the window. What he saw in the window was something he couldn't believe— the governor suddenly emerged from one of the rooms, in one hand, he held a half drunk bottle of whiskey, while using his other hand, he was practically dragging his elder daughter out, who was pleading and struggling to pull her arm away. That wasn't the end of the video, but Bucky couldn't look anymore, and he was forced to look away.

"Governor's a fuckin' drunk, physically abuses his own children, I only saved them, and the world deemed me a child kidnapper, and he gets away being a fuckin' victim, _hilarious_ , right?"

For how long had this been going on? Was the governor really what this video portrayed him to be? Another question that bugged him was— if she wasn't lying, then where the hell were these kids now?

"Feel free to go through this folder, this contains video proofs on each and every child that's ever been associated to me, you can see the reason just why— I _kidnapped_ these children," she moved away from the computer, waiting for Bucky to sit down. Slowly, he lowered himself against the leather chair, as he began watching a few videos— every single video showing some kind of a torture being inflicted upon the children.

Finally, he moved away too, his eyes had seen enough, and he couldn't watch these anymore.

"You didn't answer me. Where are they now?"

"The kids? Oh, they're safe wherever they are," she began, her hand moving mindlessly as she waved her fingers in the air.

"I need their exact location."

"Okay, just because you patched up my face, that doesn't mean you are now in a position to start making demands— " She suddenly snapped, her hands flying to her hips, her eyes narrowed.

"Well, it's either that or— "

" _Or_?"

Bucky sighed dramatically, his shoulders hunching upon listening to her words, and her stubbornness.

"I have to drag you to prison and they get it out of you by their own ways," He suddenly reached out towards her, when she had least expected it, grabbing her arm with his metal hand, his metal fingers digging into her skin as he tried to pull her towards him.

[Y/N] had many ways. All her life, this is what she had done— run, escape and fight. She bit her lip hard, taking a sharp breath, as she let him pull her towards him, which gave her a chance to be now inches from him. When she was close enough, she smashed her forehead hard against his, hurting herself too in the whole thing, but she regained her balance shortly, both her hands flying out and fixing on Bucky's shoulders. It all happened so fast, and since Bucky had least expected it, his guard was down. The hit made him step backwards, and if that wasn't all, her palms on his shoulders— she pushed him backwards too— with force which made him move away from her.

That's when she pressed a button— _in her belt_. And a glass wall came spiralling downwards, distancing Bucky from her. Her lips curved, and Bucky stepped towards her, placing his palms on the glass as he began tapping against it, trying to crack it with his metal arm, but the glass was made of something so strong, even Bucky's metal hand was not enough to break it— _Dargonite_.

"Too bad, you pulling me into prison will have to wait— it will be a while you'll be able to get out of this place," dramatically, she lowered herself into a bowing stance, her hair falling all over her face as she started taking backward steps. She ran out of that room, darting straight towards her room, grabbing her wallet her gun, her car keys and a bunch of painkillers before she ran out of the house.

Meanwhile, Bucky screamed in frustration when he slammed his vibranium fist against the wall for the tenth time and not even a crack appeared on it. He finally pulled out his phone, dialling Sam's number, fixing it against his ear.

"Hey man— "

"I need your help. I need you to come get me out— "

Bucky's voice was cut off by the sound of engine, as the car pulled away— and the glass wall that was trapping him rolled back up again, freeing him from the trap. It hadn't happened by itself, she had intentionally pressed the button again, the minute she had pressed on the gas, to free him as she had driven away.

"Where the hell are you?"

"Ah, never mind. I'm free now. And on my way— "He stepped out of that dreadful room, dashing up the flight of stairs and straight out of the house, noticing that the car was gone.

She was a cunning one— but he wasn't less— Bucky smiled to himself thinking of the moment last night— when he was patching up her face when _he had bugged her_ — sticking that device inside the collar of [Y/N]'s hoodie.


End file.
